When it comes to worrying about others' wrong views and my own, my own are far more important. In the long-run, wrong views will take care of themselves, because by being in conflict with reality, they plant the seed for their own destruction. And right views will take root, because by being in accordance with reality, they contain the seed of their own transcendence. Even if the whole world were destroyed and all of humanity was gone, there would still be right view and the capacity to distort it, to create wrong views.

I find that the most successful way for the Dhamma to be spread is through thoughtful, sincere, humble one-on-one discussions among friends, in which neither side has an agenda. When a person proselytizes, whether subtly or blatantly, it tends to cause people to retract. So, even if your view is the right one, you're not going about it in an effective way.

If you develop enough virtue, I think it would become all the more clear how worthless proselytizing is. Because with virtue, you can end up with thousands of people worshiping you and following you around, like the character, Brian, in Monty Python's Life of Brian. People like virtue because it is a rare thing. If you could follow all of the Vinaya rules, joyously, and devote yourselves in every moment to the good of others, anyone who knew you would be so inspired by your life and hang on your every word.

...But instead of doing this, we'd rather set up some crafty online community, googlebomb to get it to #1, and set up attack-sites to "spread the word" about our enemies.

Individual wrote:It has often been said that Buddhists are not dogmatic or sectarian, and it isn't true. The way they are dogmatic is simply very cute, compared with western religion. In western religion, dogmatics and sectarians simply blatantly say to your face, "You're an idiot, a heretic, and you're going to hell." With Buddhist dogmatics and sectarians, they might hold the same view, but don't explicitly state it, and it's simply subtly implied by what they say they believe... In the open, they are respectful to one another, but in private circles, among like-minded people, or hidden within the literature they publish, suddenly the respect for other views ceases to exist.

I think that is a superficial read of people of every kind. What makes a noble being noble is non-sectarian and what makes someone aspire to be a noble being is not dependent on a sectarian process or it is not happening at all. I might say someone is speaking idiocy because they have said something idiotic. It wouldn't make me sectarian, it would make me blunt and harsh speaking.

Individual wrote:For a similar mindset, as an analogy: I once told my father of a psychology experiment where researchers intentionally bumped into people in major cities to see how they reacted (apologetically or rudely). They found a sharp contrast between New York City and London, whereas New Yorkers tended to react more rudely, Londoners tended to react more apologetically. I told my father of this (who is British), and he said that doesn't mean English people are nicer, only superficially more polite. They'll be deeply apologetic, then walk 10 feet and mutter to themselves, "Friggin' clumsy idiot". When it comes to religious dogmatism, western religion has more of the mindset of the New Yorker, but Buddhist dogmatics tend to have the mindset of the superficially polite English.

Again, this is all reaching. It is like painting over a billboard with a thin lacquer, does it change the picture? Not much. Does it penetrate the truth in that image? Not at all.

Would it be so disappointing if a lot of buddhists did turn out to be wonderful people as well? Whether they speak sweetly or bitterly or not? Would it be so disappointing if underneath the proselytization of anything there existed some-thing(s) of value? Not really, something has value or not for each person that values it or doesn't.

If I bump into an Londoner or a New Yorker why should I be surprised at any kind of reaction to my lack of mindful attention? Even if they bump into me from behind and then curse me as they pass, why should I give it even a moments thought? That is their perception and their expression. I probably only see a busy and crowded street where many people are bumping about and doing or saying whatever they are apt to be doing or saying. Whether they are buddhist or somethingelseist doesn't have much to do with the wandering around and bumping into each other or how much civility anyone displays.

Any politeness or civility I have reflexively arises from my childhood conditioning and is modified by ongoing social conditioning. Any real self restraint I do or don't have is a product of my self discipline or a lack thereof and I may or may not apply that discipline to the given circumstances. Those two variables alone are enough to make an external appraisal of the overall makeup of my nature impossible to gather from any amount of external observations of my expressed forms of social behaviors and interactions. People can appear a given way because they are that way or they aren't that way but want to appear that way or because they have no choice but to appear that way but aren't actually that way but some other way. So even why people appear to be this way or that way can have all or nothing to do with what they be.

Buddhists are generally exposed to the idea that all of this appearance is illusory. That is a pretty basic notion of buddhism. It is pretty much a given amongst long term buddhist practitioners of all kinds. So buddhists probably generally appear quite dismissive of the issues arising from concerns about appearances. Buddhists will want to get at why appearances arise at all and are not as directly focused on appearances arising in any particular forms to the exclusion of other forms. To the extent that they are concerned with what arises in a buddhist sense it is a non sectarian concern that is not based on how someone else feels about their appearances or how they feel about someone else's appearance. Those are all societal concerns that buddhists share with all other beings in a shared world.

I guess the rules say nothing about forums that don't exist any more...

It's a shame there was no transfer of ownership in that instance.

Metta,Retro.

For some reason, I have the distinct feeling that Brandon may have become a Christian under the influence of his new girlfriend, or at least turned away from it out of being belittled by her... but my wisdom is weak, and that's just a shot in the dark. It's most likely a mental fabrication, but it would be amusing if (as my wild imagination has, occasionally in the past) it turned out to actually be true. In any case, like most pseudo-Zen Buddhist westerners, present company included, Brandon apparently didn't take Buddhism very seriously the entire time he was an alleged "Buddhist".

Also, I suspect that Buddhachat will be back, several months or years in the future. When he finds that his wife is also dukkha, he will be back.

Well, if it's not possible for us to discuss this topic without breaching the Terms Of Service, the thread will have to be closed. Hopefully it won't come to that as I'm sure there's plenty of scope within the TOS for a sensible discussion on the subject.